Mystery Lover...but overall a very eclectic reader. Will read everything from the classics to historical fiction. Biography to essays. Not into horror or much into YA. If you would like me to review a book, then please see my stated review policy BEFORE emailing me.
Please Note: This is a book blog. It is not a platform for advertising.
Please do NOT contact me to ask that I promote your NON-book websites or products. Thank you.

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Mount TBR: Checkpoint #1

Wow!
Three months into the year already. Well, you know what that
means...Your
mountaineering guide is calling for the first quarterly check-in post.
Let's see how our challengers are doing. Made it a couple of miles?
Camping out in a cave 1/3 of the way up the mountain face? Taking
refuge in a mountain hut along the way? Let us know how you're doing.
For those who would like to participate in this checkpoint post, I'd
like you to do two things:

1. Tell us how many miles you've made
it up your mountain (# of books read). If you're really ambitious, you
can do some intricate math and figure out how the number of books you've
read correlates to actual miles up Pike's Peak, Mt. Ararat, etc. And
feel free to tell us about any particularly exciting adventures you've
had along the way.

~I
have read 30 of my pledged 100 books for Mt. Everest...which means I'm
slightly off-track to plant that flag on the peak. [And I'm a bit behind on my pace for last year too...]

2. Complete ONE (or more if you like) of the following:

A. Post a picture of your favorite cover so far.

Here's mine (one of my beloved pocket-size books from the pulp era):

B. Who has been your favorite character so far? And tell us why, if you like.

Mine:
I'm actually going to choose the detective from The Odor of Violets (pictured above). Captain Duncan Maclain is a blind detective who lost his eyesight due to gassing in World War I. His
heightened abilities (other senses) are much more believable than those
of Max Carrados (a blind detective who first appeared in 1914). Where
Carrados's ability to smell spirit gum and to read newsprint by touch
seem more like parlor tricks, Maclain's abilities are explained through
careful training.

C. Have any of the books you read
surprised you--if so, in what way (not as good as anticipated?
unexpected ending? Best thing you've read ever? Etc.)

The Best of Science Fiction & Fantasy 8th Series edited by Anthony Boucher was a huge surprise, but not in a good way. I respect Boucher's opinion in both SF/Fantasy and mysteries and I was surprised to find how many of the stories he selected for this collection were sub-par.

D. Title Scrabble: See if you can
spell a word using the first letter of the first word in the titles of
some/all of the books you have read so far. Feel free to consider "A,"
"An," or "The" as the first word or not as it helps you with your word
hunt.

My word: Compact

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

Odor of Violets by Baynard Kendrick

Murder Out of Turn by Frances & Richard Lockridge

Payoff for the Banker by Frances & Richard Lockridge

About the Murder of Geraldine Foster by Anthony Abbot

Cuckoo's Calling, (The) by Robert Galbraith

The Sign of the Book by John Dunning

And what do
you get for all that hard work (and distraction from the actual climb)?
The link will close at 11:59 pm on Sunday, April 8. On Monday, April 9, I
will crank up the Custom Random Number Generator and pick a winning
climber. He or she will have the chance to add to their TBR
stack via my gently-used book vault (prize list will be sent). Just think, if you win a book you
can start up a pile for next year's Mount TBR Challenge.

Even if
you're not in the mood for a prize or if you've only got one leg of the
journey under your belt, I'd love to have you check in and tell us how
your climb is going!

***Please note--the linky is for Checkpoint posts only. The link must be
to a specific Checkpoint post (not your blog's home page in general).
Links that are not Checkpoint-specific will be removed--to make it
easier for me to track a winner.

1 comment:

I've read 11 and am on my 12th, so I have almost completed the first mountain. The biggest surprise to me was The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton. It started out like a detective story but ended up quite something else! A little confusing at first, but enjoyable. My favorite character was a real person, Martin Pistorious, author of Ghost Boy. An illness left him in a state where he could not move or communicate with people, yet he was awake and aware. One therapist thought he understood her and pressed to get him tested, starting him on his way to communication. Quite a fascinating story - deeply sad in some places, but triumphant in the end.